This blog is all about how I how used humor to remain sane while dealing with the insanity of a brain tumor the size of my wife’s fist. Why blog? To help other folks cope with serious health issues/brain tumors/cancer and give anybody wading through the muck of rehabilitation some hope or at least a chuckle or two. It will include a vaguely chronological story, books reviews, presentations to rehab patients, etc.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

“How Inactivity Changes the Brain” or “This Is Your Brain on the Couch”

The wonderful Ms. Gretchen
Reynolds, who writes the Well blog
for the NY Times, has just reported on
a provocative piece of research for those of us who are worried about our
brains, be they damaged, injured or aging just too damn fast.

Her
article, entitled How Inactivity Changes
the Brain, starts off saying “A number of studies have shown that exercise
can remodel the brain by prompting the creation of new brain cells and inducing
other changes. Now it appears that inactivity, too, can remodel the brain,
according to a notable new report”

And,
guess what? In activity doesn’t improve brain performance.

She
goes on to write that “The study, which was conducted in rats but likely has
implications for people too, the researchers say, found that being sedentary
changes the shape of certain neurons in ways that significantly affect not just
the brain but the heart as well. The findings may help to explain, in part, why
a sedentary lifestyle is so bad for us.”

This
following quote from Patrick Mueller, an associate professor of physiology at
Wayne State University who oversaw the new study, is now etched into my brain: “In
upcoming presentations, Dr. Mueller said, he plans to show slides of the
different rat neurons and, echoing the old anti-drug message, point out that In
upcoming presentations, Dr. Mueller said, he plans to show slides of the
different rat neurons and, echoing the old anti-drug message, point out that
“‘this is your brain.’ And this is your brain on the couch.”

If you're particularly active, a science major or like reading dense scientific reports, here's a link to the abstract, entitled Physical
(in)activity-dependent structural plasticity in bulbospinal catecholaminergic
neurons of rat rostral ventrolateral medulla published in The Journal of Comparative Neurologyhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24114875

John

PS
- And if you find a way to work the words “bulbospinal catecholaminergic
neurons” into a conversation over
lunch today, give yourself a gold star.